1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a serial recording apparatus such as a serial printer including an automatic sheet feeder, and more particularly, a serial recording apparatus for controlling the feed of a subsequent recording medium after the recording a previous recording medium is completed, and a method of feeding a recording medium.
2. Related Art
In a recording apparatus such as a printer, an automatic sheet feeder for automatically feeding paper which is subjected to a recording operation is included. In the automatic sheet feeder, if the printing of previous paper is completed, the feed of subsequent paper is started at a timing after the previous paper is ejected or slightly before the ejection of the previous paper is completed.
However, in a serial recording apparatus, the printing of the paper is performed by alternately performing a printing operation for performing the recording of one row (1 raster line) by moving a recording head provided in a carriage once in a main scan direction while ejecting ink droplets onto the paper and a transporting operation for transporting the paper by a predetermined pitch in a sub scan direction (for example, see JP-A-2001-232882 and JP-A-2006-212923)
For example, in the serial recording apparatuses disclosed in JP-A-2001-232882 and JP-A-2006-212923, in order to shorten a printing time, an overlap control operation for performing a paper transporting operation and a carriage operation at a partially overlapped timing is performed (for example, see JP-A-2001-232882 and JP-A-2006-212923). In the overlap control operation, first, if a printing operation of one pass is completed, a paper feed motor (PF motor) is operated so as to transport the paper. Thereafter, before the driving of the PF motor is completed, a carriage motor (CR motor) is operated at a predetermined timing so as to start the movement of the carriage. Accordingly, the carriage is accelerated while the paper is transported such that a printing operation which is performed at a constant speed range is started substantially simultaneous with the completion of the paper transportation. Therefore, it is possible to shorten the printing time compared with the case where the CR motor is started after the completion of the paper transportation.
A serial recording apparatus including a power delivering switching device which shares one power source (electric motor) between an automatic sheet feeder and a suction pump of a maintenance device for a recording head and switches a power destination according to the movement position of a carriage is known (for example, see JP-A-2007-90761 (paragraphs 0078 to 0080)).
In an ink jet recording apparatus, in order to prevent nozzles of a recording head from being clogged, a flushing operation for periodically ejecting a thickened ink in nozzles and refreshing the ink in the nozzles is performed. When the flushing operation is performed, the ink droplets are ejected into a cap of the maintenance device for performing the maintenance of the recording head. If the waste ink collected in the cap by the flushing operation remains, the pipe of the cap may be clogged. If the amount of waste ink ejected into the cap exceeds a predetermined amount, a suction pump communicating with the cap is driven and an air suction operation for sucking and removing the waste ink collected in the cap is performed (for example, see JP-A-2007-90761 (paragraphs 0078 to 0080))
Although the overlap control operation for performing the paper transporting operation and the carriage operation at the partially overlapped timing is performed, a printing speed of the serial recording apparatus is lower than that of a line printer or a page printer. More particularly, there is a need for increasing a printing speed at the time of a high-speed printing operation.